AILSA CHANG, HOST:
A mental health initiative in Maine is helping older men find community and make friends. Ashley Milne-Tyte reports. And a warning - this story mentions suicide statistics.
ASHLEY MILNE-TYTE, BYLINE: Maine has the oldest population in the country. Jess Maurer is executive director of the Maine Council on Aging. She says getting older can be challenging for everyone, including men.
JESS MAURER: We kind of, as a stereotype, have this idea that men are OK. That's a stereotype that's wrong.
MILNE-TYTE: Men over 75 have the highest suicide rate in the U.S. There are many reasons for this, says Mary Gagnon of NAMI Maine, a mental health nonprofit. Among them are loss, sickness, the perception of being a drain on others and social isolation. But, she says...
MARY GAGNON: The enemy of suicide is connection.
MILNE-TYTE: One effort to connect older men with others is happening in Harpswell, Maine, a coastal community where volunteering is big, especially around food.
SURREY HARDCASTLE: And then we've got American chop suey here, if you'd like to see that.
MILNE-TYTE: It all started when this volunteer-led group, Harpswell Aging at Home, noticed men were missing from a lot of their activities. Then drivers for their homemade food delivery service encountered many single, older men who didn't get out or cook. Here's volunteer Surrey Hardcastle.
HARDCASTLE: So they're eating cereal or hot dogs or a peanut butter sandwich, and that's not a very good long-term solution.
MILNE-TYTE: She grabbed another volunteer, Tom Mahoney, and tasked him with coming up with something that would get men out and socializing with other guys. Mahoney says he had to be careful how he framed the idea.
TOM MAHONEY: If we said it was a support group for men, they're not going to come (laughter) because it would indicate, I'm vulnerable; I need this. We don't want to be perceived as being vulnerable.
MILNE-TYTE: He and others landed on a monthly lunch named ROMEO - Retired Older Man Eating Out. He got the idea from other grassroots ROMEO groups around the country. The latest lunch had around 55 guys in attendance. One of them is Sam Powers. He's traveled all over the world. He's now 80, lives alone, and he had a stroke last summer, which has affected his voice.
Would you describe yourself as quite independent?
SAM POWERS: Oh, yeah, stubbornly, stupidly independent.
MILNE-TYTE: Powers says he's met two or three new people at each lunch, and this is as close as he'll get to saying the lunches help him. As we drive away from Powers' apartment, Mahoney says there's nothing wrong with men being self-reliant.
MAHONEY: But we still have a need, like anyone else, to be connected to people. That's what he was missing but wasn't saying.
MILNE-TYTE: Jim Hays isn't going to say it either. He's a lifelong Mainer and retired harbormaster of nearby Bailey Island. He now attends the free ROMEO lunches, too.
JIM HAYS: We've worked all our lives, and it's hard to get out of the chair, to get involved with something. You know, we lose our contacts with the outside world, and it takes something like this to pull us back in.
MILNE-TYTE: But he says the pulling is going well. Surrey Hardcastle agrees. She says the ROMEO men are going on to get together at other times.
HARDCASTLE: It's very exciting. It's doing just what we wanted it to do and just what all the research says is needed.
MILNE-TYTE: To encourage older men to become healthier and less isolated through human connection. For NPR News, I'm Ashley Milne-Tyte.
CHANG: And if you or someone you know is experiencing a crisis, you can call or text 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
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